Interesting philosophically and geopolitically, and a window on a world a hundred years gone: a distinctive tale still has...
Nearly a century after his death, five “lost” manuscripts of Verne are part of the SF master’s return to active publication (Invasion of the Sea, The Mysterious Island, both 2002).
This latest, first published in French in 1909 after being massively rewritten by Verne’s son Michel and now stripped to its original spare form, is an unabashedly speculative novel of civilization and nationhood, and a powerful man who yearns to be free from both. In Magellania, the archipelago forming the southernmost reach of South America, a primal scene occurs: a native stalks a wild guanaco and is pounced on by a jaguar, which is then shot by a mysterious but revered European, Kaw-djer, who arrived in the islands some years before. Kaw-djer takes the mauled native back to the man’s village in his longboat, but the man dies before they arrive. Saddened, Kaw-djer returns to the home on another island that he shares with the native channel pilot Karroly and his son, while the narrator explains the status of Magellania in the 1880s: territory as yet unclaimed by any nation, which is why Kaw-djer, who lives by the dictum “Neither God nor master,” has settled there. Unfortunately, Chile and Argentina soon lay claim to the region, and Kaw-djer, with nowhere else to go, in a gathering storm steers his boat to the island forming the southern tip of the archipelago, intending to throw himself into the sea. But a ship in distress gives him pause, and he and Karroly do what they can to save it; disabled and dismasted, it finally wrecks on a more sheltered island, where its cargo of hundreds of emigrants on their way to South Africa is mostly saved. The emigrants, from the US and Europe, winter over on the island, and, later, when a Chilean emissary offers to give the island to them if they’ll settle on it, they accept. Kaw-djer now has a place to remain free—but at a price.
Interesting philosophically and geopolitically, and a window on a world a hundred years gone: a distinctive tale still has the power to charm and provoke.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56649-179-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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